"Bitcoin is Worse is Better"

Despite some pessimists’ critiques and disbelief, Bitcoin has admittedly witnessed enormous success since its invention. To the security and cryptographic community, the idea of digital currency or electronic cash is by no means new. As early as 1982, Chaum has outlined his blueprint of an anonymous e-cash scheme in his pioneering paper [10]. Ever since then, hundreds of academic papers have been published to improve the efficiency and security of e-cash constructions - to name a few, see [15, 8, 9]. Naturally, an interesting question arises: Despite three decades’ research on e-cash, why have e-cash schemes not taken off, while Bitcoin - a system designed and initially implemented possibly single-handedly by someone previously unknown, a system that uses no fancy cryptography, and is by no means perfect - has enjoyed a swift rise to success? …Bitcoin has a completely dist...